


thou shalt confess with thy mouth (jaepil)

by maoz



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Christianity, Church Shit, Dowoon is a panicked gay, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gay Panic, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, please don't read if homophobia related to religion is triggering for you, so much gay panic, will be happy fun jaepil moments doe, wooo light topics, youngk is a bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maoz/pseuds/maoz
Summary: Kim Wonpil is almost sinless: he professes faith in Jesus, writes weekly devotions in the school's newspaper, and plays in the band he started with his best friends at his Christian university.There's just one problem.He's gay. And completely, totally, inexorably whipped for his bandmate, Park Jaehyung.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K & Original Female Character(s), Kim Wonpil/Park Jaehyung | Jae
Comments: 19
Kudos: 25





	1. prologue: stigma

**Author's Note:**

> hellooooo! welcome to this introductory chapter to a good ol day6 fic!!! the topics covered in this story will be p near and dear to me <3 I'll definitely try to keep it light, though (at least as light as it can be) bc we all love rainbows and unicorns and glittery shit.
> 
> will have a few chapters (I guess?? didn't really plan for this bad boy lol) so for anyone following along: BEAR WITH ME

“This is a  _ Christian _ band,” Jae jokes for the umpteenth time, his voice muffled by the Little Debby honey bun lodged in his mouth, bending dangerously at its highly processed seam like he always makes it do. Younghyun has just said something ridiculously gross, so gross that Dowoon is curled up in fetal position on the floor, and Jae’s standard retort fires back just in time for Sungjin to conveniently repress whatever filth just came the Canadian-exchange-student-turned-bassist-of-their-band’s mouth by banging on the wall repeatedly until the sound drowns out his thoughts.

But while the four guys are living in the (unpleasant) moment, a pang hits Wonpil’s chest at the sight for sore eyes before him: Park Jaehyung wearing his devastating plaid button-up and an even more devastating lopsided grin. Not only does he look adorable with the sweet snack hanging out of his mouth as he leans against the vending machine at the end of their dorm’s hallway, but he invokes the dreadful subject of his conservative background that quietly shuts down Wonpil’s massive crush on him. And he doesn't even realize it.

There’s something to be said for the limits of forbidden love, Wonpil muses unhappily to himself while Jae runs a hand through his tousled blonde coat of hair that he helped him dye last week. Starting a band, rooming with all of his bandmates, and then developing the world’s fattest crush on one of said bandmates at a very Christian university all sounds like an exciting, romantic mishmash of drama and despair, but the reality of life being closeted in an unsure environment for Wonpil is far from glamorous. Plus, the forbidden aspect was only really cute and desirable at the beginning — before his butterflies turned into a little something more substantial. Unfortunately. 

Now, juggling the challenge of hiding his feelings for his best friend  _ and _ actively avoiding suspicion under the critical eyes of his conservative peers is agonizing. He’s reminded of it every time he’s editing the school’s publication,  _ The Mountain _ , when he scrolls down to the political commentary to be printed on the back that propagates a resistance to “conforming to the world” (see: Christian speak for blocking out remotely progressive ideas). Needless to say, Wonpil doesn’t toy with politics for the newspaper. He writes weekly devotions instead. 

The years of guilt and struggle behind him before Wonpil even fully admitted to himself that he was gay always culminated in one figurative slap to the face whenever little things would happen between him and his best friends. It was always whenever Jae would say or do something during practice, some fake flirtation that always drove Wonpil insane, like the time he sauntered over to the keyboard, stood directly behind him, and painted his hands with his own over the keys, following Wonpil’s fingers closely even as they jumped entire octaves. He was so flustered his sweaty fingers slipped at moments, but instead of quitting, all Jae did was laugh, which sent his warm breath down Wonpil’s neck, effectively pricking his spine with a million little shivers. With his face shuttered by red and a shy smile, Wonpil couldn’t have been more sure he was totally giving himself away when he caught Dowoon’s eyes behind him. His own, Wonpil remembers often with a shudder, had narrowed considerably. The incident caused Wonpil enough concern that he had made it a point the next morning when Dowoon had class to leave his laptop in the living room of their dorm open to a picture of Tzuyu from TWICE on Google Images, hoping to prove his heterosexuality. It’s that bad. 

Apparently, though, Wonpil isn’t doing a good enough job of hiding how whipped he is for Jae, because from the floor, he can see Dowoon giving him the same look he had on that day Jae stood behind him at the keyboard, with his brows knitted together and his lips pouting. Wonpil quickly shoves his hands in his pockets, training his eyes on the floor before he has to face anyone else. 

“I’m not sure God would be happy with us parading that title around,” Sungjin remarks at a whisper as the chaos dies down and the boys have all seemed to realize that someone could very well jump out of their room and into the hall to scream at them or file a complaint with the RA, so they censor themselves with residual giggles instead. “Seriously, let’s go to bed. That means please don’t stay up and bang on the electric drums, too.”

“No promises,” Dowoon replies, rising and dusting himself off while Younghyun ruffles the younger’s hair, which has been in a cut drought for nearly six months and, in Wonpil’s opinion, needs a savior much greater than anyone on a cross. The guys chuckle, Sungjin’s cue to turn around and leave while Wonpil holds his hand out for everyone’s leftover quarters (he’s been the group’s designated vending machine treasurer since freshman year).

As they follow Sungjin down the hall, Wonpil walks silently next to Jae, who throws his arm around his shoulder like it’s nothing. 

And it’s at this moment that Wonpil knows, with his heart abuzz and its own shoulders falling as his tense up, that he can’t hide this for much longer.

  
Kim Wonpil is completely, totally, and most frighteningly,  _ inexorably _ whipped for Park Jaehyung. 


	2. zulaikha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weeeeeee I'm back after a month of agonizing over how to format this! decided im gonna do a miniseries sort of format with really short and sweet chapters (which means double and triple posting I guess) so that's fun for all of us! right? I hope.
> 
> also - doing a little something with the chapter titles. should be a special experience for those of us who grew up in church. also totally cool if not. please stay please stay please stay please stay please st
> 
> thanks for coming back. hope u enjoy.

There’s a story from the Bible that floats around on campus about how there’s no excuse for avoiding temptation. The holiest upperclassman like to tell the story of Potiphar’s wife, who physically restrains Joseph by his cloak to get him to have sex with her, to dispel any ideas anyone might have about their newfound freedom now that they’re in college. 

A common man, of course, could never keep his hands off an evil temptress. Joseph is different, though. He leaves the cloak behind and literally flees the area just to resist sin and be righteous. Typically, the tale is delivered in a gentle housewarming package to the freshmen at orientation about the dangers of premarital heterosexual sex, but Wonpil never interpreted it that way. 

For him, it’s always been about his puppy-love crush on Jae tempting him to destroy a single friendship at best and be cast out of his group of friends and community at worst. Avoiding this temptation is less because of a genuine desire to “break free” of his gayness and more for the sake of social survival. 

He loves church and he loves his community for most of the things they stand for, for the way they raised him on the values he continues to stand for. The challenge is evading the big blue eyes of Dr. Eckleburg, so to speak. The kind that canvas their environment for anything gay or gay-friendly.

Naturally, with the burden of a new school year and thus a new set of opportunities to accidentally out himself, he has to project a little in September's first issue of  _The Mountain_. 

“But Piriiii,” Dowoon dotes at breakfast the morning it comes out, lunging forward to ruffle the older one’s hair in some sort of power move. He dodges, causing a bump that effectively pushes a fork cascading off of the table. “I like reading what you have to say about spiritual accountability in friendships.”

“Don’t read it in front of me, then,” Wonpil smiles and plucks a strip of bacon from Dowoon’s plate with his free hand.

Laughing from his place at the stove, Jae swivels around on his heel. The sound never gets old. “I’m gonna hold you  _ accountable _ for being a liar,” he teases, “not telling me about how much of a sad boy you are, and shit. I saw my songbook.”

“Hush and watch your language,” Wonpil mumbles, his cheeks, full of bacon, reddening while Dowoon  _ Ooo _ s from the table. 

“I don’t know what you saw, but I think I could try my hand at Christian emo,” he chimes while Wonpil bashfully glances at his hands.

Pouring his heart out into the songbook that he and Jae share is therapeutic. Those lyrics, he recalls, cryptically reference his relationship with Jesus in relation to his relationship with a forbidden, gender-neutral love interest. Being a writer is hard when Wonpil can’t express himself to the extent that he wants to. At least with music, he can rip angst across the page in such a way that leaves things to the imagination.

Jae covers his mouth with his hand, mockingly. “Have I offended thee? Shall I be held accountable?”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll hold your  _mom_ accountable,” Wonpil throws out lamely, eliciting a noise so inhuman from Jae’s mouth even Dowoon starts laughing. 

Between hiccups of that pure joy and amusement Jae always seems to carry in his voice, he chokes out the words, “You’re so cute sometimes, dude.”

That sinking, dreadful feeling returns to Wonpil’s gut.

It’s funny how easy it is with Jae. He feels stupid for ever getting flustered because there’s obviously nothing but philia between them, which is one of the Jesus words for deep,  _ friendly _ love, the kind that best friends who’ve been through years of bonding together share. Years of trust. Years of Jae’s two-week relationships with girls that he thinks for sure will end in marriage. Years of writing and music and having class together and just so happening to both fall in love with the same guy, Sungjin, from their freshman seminar class, who knew a Canadian guy. 

Logically, unreciprocated feelings are good. Jae didn’t have to carry the heavy cross that Wonpil did, and that way, he wouldn’t tempt him further by humoring him with double-sided attraction. The illogical reality, though, is that romance is an unwaning fire flickering in the way of poor Wonpil’s vision constantly. With Jae’s existence filtered through bright pink  _ I love you, we’re meant to be together, you’re the coolest guy I’ve ever met, I want you to cuddle me until I fall asleep on your skinny bare bird chest laughing at something you’re teasing me for _ feelings, it’s hard to favor organized religion over the longing of a lovesick heart.

There’s no reason why Jae should like the guy who spent hours on Christmas last year talking to his mom about ideal conditions for growing radishes, anyway. Wonpil reminds himself of this humbling fact to calm himself down as he feels Jae’s arms slither around his tummy. 

Dowoon interrupts his short-circuited train of thought by rising to wash his dish for once. “Please don’t make any plans tonight, guys. Spaghetti Night is special.”

The boys nod in agreement. Ever since Sungjin scheduled an exam on one Spaghetti Night last year, thus disrupting the order of designated dinnertime with the roomies, Dowoon has been anal about who does what on Mondays. He doesn’t even follow his class calendars that closely. It’s important to him.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jae says, and it almost sounds sarcastic. He turns his head closer into Wonpil’s neck, an action that seizes his lungs. “Also, bro, you left your lotion in my room. I’m not gonna ask what you used it for, but try not to come in my room to do anything weird.”

Truthfully, Wonpil did not use his lotion for anything except his criminally dry hands at this time of the year as the weather begins to cool, and he’s not sure how the bottle ended up in Jae’s room. This, however, is not the issue at hand.

The issue is, one, the fire-hot hives that break out on the apples of his cheeks and trickle down his neck. The second is the angle at which Jae’s head rests on his shoulder, an effort he went out of his way to make because of their height difference, and the feeling of his hot breath hitting his neck from a dangerous proximity that sends Wonpil’s head reeling. Around him, everything starts to blur, frozen in place.

He swears Dowoon can sense the tension he created by the way he raises an eyebrow. That could be his imagination, though. Hopefully.

“I’m just messing with you,” Jae giggles, a sweet little sound that feels better than most music. “But really. Go get your shit. Stuff, I mean.”

Jae is on his tail as Wonpil wanders in, not far from the kitchen.  _ The Mountain _ is placed neatly on his bed amidst the mess in his room, open to the last page, the spot reserved for Wonpil’s article. Of course. Jae wouldn’t read the paper for any other reason.

“Proud of you, man.”

Wonpil rolls his eyes instead of dwelling on the way his heart swells. “For what?” he asks, taking his usual seat at the end of Jae’s plush blue bed in criss cross position, facing his longtime same-sex crush like the love he has for him is transparent and innocent and pure. Shame is a dreadful thing, because no matter how sweet and shiny his natural feelings are, something twisting his heart around tells him that it’s inherently black, inherently ugly, inherently dirty to love Jae.

Sometimes, all of this feels like betrayal. He tries not to think about how grossed out Jae would be if he ever found out the truth.

“Just, y’know, being you,” Jae muses through the sucker that he just unwrapped hanging out of his mouth, folding the newspaper up and placing it on his bedside table. Wonpil forgets about the lotion on top of the dresser as Jae produces their songbook from his drawer and flips to the page that he’d last scribbled out some lyrics on. 

His eyes follow each line again, like he memorized exactly where they start and end, but he can’t get enough of the music. Wonpil imagines the chords swimming around in his head. How he transposes words to melodies. He’s brilliant.

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” he taunts, the lollipop falling out of his mouth and planting a sticky red spot right on Wonpil’s work. “Can we work with this a little tonight? After spaghetti?” 

Wonpil almost giggles out a “sure” in response to the puppy dog eyes Jae is giving him, and he feels like he should pull a Joseph and bolt. But he doesn’t. And for the first time in a long time, he isn’t struck by a flash of guilt when he indulges in the blow to the head he receives from an angry Jae and his pillow.

He’s not entirely sure where God stands on this. Sometimes, though, it feels like He’s sending down small signs of support.

  
  



	3. delilah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would u look at that! another post!
> 
> it'll get more interesting next time around I promise mwah

“Shit!”

Younghyun whispers a string of various other four-letter Christlike words as he ducks behind a shrub in front of the business building. The sophomore he has Tuesday-Thursday Statistics with is seen emerging from her car with a girlfriend and a Starbucks drink in hand, laughing at something the other said with her head thrown back and her hair rustling in the willowy autumn wind that pushes it around just a little. 

Sungjin scrunches his face up, a horrible habit of his when Younghyun does something ridiculous that he absolutely hates. It makes him feel like a fool. And maybe he is, but on a Monday when he doesn’t have Stat and therefore does not need to impress the sophomore, letting her see him on the move in sweats without having had coffee is the last thing he wants.

“Nancy would notice you if you  _ talked _ to her,” Sungjin huffs, hiking his backpack up higher on his shoulder. Younghyun pouts and crosses his arms in response, causing Sungjin to scoff.

“I’ll talk to her when she’s not with her friend,” he promises, emptily. Taking slow steps out from behind the bush, he pauses. “Wait, but dude, what if she’s going for a preacher? Do I stand a chance?”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what the girls here want?”

“What, do you think they want  _ misogyny _ too?”

The two hike up the inclined sidewalk up to the entrance of the building, wherein lies some of the Business Journalism rooms at the forefront of the school, also known as the bane of Younghyun’s existence. He knows Nancy is going into that, though, based on the major she told the professor she was picking on the first day, so he might stick around and make the guy that nearly failed him last semester at least somewhat like him.

Once inside, they’re ambushed by a loud voice echoing from the girls’ restroom, whose door is wedged wide open.

“‘As overlooked as it is, accountability is an integral component of any strong Christian relationship.’ I wrote things more profound in my diary when I was eight,” they hear the high voice sneer from within, stopping them in their tracks. They exchange wide-eyed glances.

“Is that —”

“Yes, it is,” Younghyun whispers, leaning in toward the gossip’s origin. It doesn’t stop.

“I’m just saying, it sounds half-hearted and dishonest. Plagiarized, even, but not _well_ ,” the voice continues, pausing as if interrupted. “What do you mean? I’ll tell you what isn’t God-honoring: filling a spot in the paper that reaches absolutely nobody when a newer Journalism student might deserve it. — If this is the standard, I could easily take it over. I’m just saying!” 

“Fuck,” he breathes, turning to Sungjin. “She’s talking about Wonpil.”

Sungjin rolls his eyes. “No shit.” 

Before Younghyun can come up with an appropriately violent action in response, the sinisterly saccharine voice lights back up again.

“Uh-huh. Well. There is this guy in my Stat I think I could...yeah. ’Kay. Bye. Later.” 

Grabbing him by the arm, Sungjin jerks Younghyun over to the wall around the corner before she could find them. “You’re the guy,” he hisses as Younghyun swats at him.

“Huh?”

“ _You’re the guy_ ,” he repeats, annoyed. “She was quoting Wonpil’s article. She knows you’re roommates or friends or something, and she’s going to use you to get to him. Probably, I don’t know, try to intimidate him or convince him to cede his position to her? I’m not sure. But _be careful,_ idiot.” 

“Sir, yes sir,” Younghyun responds militantly, forming a considerably less polished salute that makes Sungjin want to push him down the ramp outside. 

“She’ll warm up in no time,” he grins, triumph conquering his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading luv
> 
> please comment! interacting with u makes me happy


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